Good Times at the Military Commissions
Washington Post on Bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdan:
Hamdan’s sentence of 5 1/2 years, which amounts to five more months in U.S. custody, was far lighter than some Pentagon officials had expected. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of at least 30 years, and now officials are preparing for the possibility of having to set him free or hold him indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said it has always been the Defense Department’s position that detainees could be held as enemy combatants even after acquittal at military commissions or after serving a prison sentence. “That’s always been on our minds in terms of a scenario we could face,” he said. “He will serve his time for the conviction and then he will still be an enemy combatant, and as an enemy combatant the process for potential transfer or release will apply.”
